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The developers of the 65,000 applications for Microsoft's Windows 8 platform aren't happy with the ad-fill rates, which they say have declined since the platform's introduction, Alex Wilhelm writes. "This isn't mere bad press for Windows 8, but instead a rough situation that could undermine one of the few mostly-positive narratives that the software has enjoyed: decent developer interest," writes Wilhelm, who wonders if reliance on the pubCenter ad network is to blame.

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A number of tech-based services being developed today are based on recycled ideas that didn't catch on the first time they were tried, write Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm. Food delivery, information rights management and video streaming are all old ideas that have been revived.

Major League Gaming has launched a streaming-video service that will offer gaming enthusiasts a platform for live spectating. The company says it has strong interest from advertisers, pointing to a 95% ad-fill rate during a recent test.

Microsoft sees development for the Windows Phone and the Windows Store as converging, so the company is combining developer's accounts, offering a common registration and lowering the fee. Those who already paid for separate accounts will get a rebate coupon covering their next renewal. Developers will use the same dashboards as before but can submit Windows Store and Windows Phone apps from a single account without extra charge. "The application ecosystem issue has long been the key issue holding Windows Phone back," Alex Wilhelm writes.

The Windows Store crossed the 40,000 applications mark this week despite a precipitous drop in the pace of additions since the platform's introduction, according to MetroStore Scanner. Separately, Microsoft is reaching out to developers who submitted apps rejected for crashing or being unresponsive during certification. The company is sending them two crash report files to help them determine the source of the problem, Jon Russell writes.

The Android and iOS platforms remain the top priority for developers, but Research In Motion's BlackBerry 10 OS scored surprisingly high, according to Vision Mobile's Developer Economics survey of 3,460 mobile application developers. Thirty-eight percent of developers named it a top priority, "enough to put RIM into the 'lead platform' category. The same cannot be said for Windows Phone and HTML5 -- which are at least 10 percentage points behind" the big three, Ingrid Lunden writes.